Sarah Palin
Sarah Palin a.k.a. Sarah Louise Palin was the half term Governor of Alaska from her election in 2006 until her resignation on July 3, 2009. She gained notoriety as the controversial 2008 Vice Presidential running mate of John McCain and has struggled to achieve positive public attention since then. Notwithstanding a six figure lecture fee earned in Hong Kong, she has been able to schedule few lectures. Her memoir, Going Rogue, was reportedly written in only four months. See the Village Voice Cartoon Review Palin in 2012? Palin's 2012 presidential ambitions face several serious obstacles: : 1) Poor performance as a VP candidate as exemplified by gaffs revealing her lack of knowledge about international affairs and revelations of a spending spree for clothing using party funds. : 2) Decline of the Christian Right as a voting bloc as many less prosperous Evangelical Protestants rediscover their inner liberal in the face of increasing economic inequality and as other Evangelical Protestants are turning away from political involvement altogether. : 3) Hypocrisy. She might have values but they can be rented, as is evident in her willingness to speak to the Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America's convention in Las Vegas in April, 2010. Palin is or was a Pentocostal and thus presumably a tea-totaler. However for a charge of $75,000 to $100,000 she will make herself available. : 4) Resentment of market conservatives who assume that the proper subordinate role of the Christian Right is to mobilize votes but not to name the party's presidential nominee. : 5) Lynn Vincent. Palin's speechwriter has some creepy associations. : 6) Opportunistic resignation as Governor of Alaska. William Shatner Renders Her Incoherent Resignation Speech as Poetry : 7) Rhetoric charged with violence metaphors. Here is how she defended her use of violent imagery: "As I said while campaigning for others last March in Arizona during a very heated primary race, 'We know violence isn't the answer. When we "take up our arms," we're talking about our vote.'" Sarah Palin Unapologetic After Criticism Related to Arizona Shootings James Oliphant. Los Angeles Times. January 12, 2011. This is typical of populist conservatives. They deflect blame rather than accept responsibility. As with small children, when bad things happen it is always someone else's fault. : 8) Odd religious views. Palin is associated with a brand of pentacostalism organized as the Apostolic Council of Prophetic Elders that seeks to convert Jews and see other Jews return to Palestine, thereby hastening the Second Coming. Evidence of her presidential ambitions could be seen in her speech December 5, 2009 speech to the Gridiron Club in Washington, in which she deployed self-deprecating humor in an attempt to assuage concerns by Washington journalists that she is an extreme personality. During the speech she made fun of Vice President Joe Biden's baldness, which may indicate her focus on the superficial (appearance) over character and intellect. VP Selection Question Why was Palin selected by McCain as running mate? The best answer is that as a member of the Christain Right and as a middle aged woman, she brought ideological and identity balance to the team. Lorenzo Benet speculates in Trailblazer: An Intimate Biography of Sarah Palin that she was on the VP shortlist six months earler than was admitted and was lobbying for the job by increasing her national profile. Another answer is that McCain understood he was likely to lose the election becuase of the economy and the greater charisma of his opponent, and decided to add Palin to the ticket as a way to explain away his defeat. Issue Positions Opposed to Keynesian Counter-Cyclical Government Spending Palin has joined the posturing of Republican Governors who have rejected some or all of the Obama Stimulus Package. On March 19, Palin announced that she was declining nearly half of the Federal dollars that would have helped her state's citizens: "We won’t be bound by federal strings in exchange for dollars, nor will we dig ourselves a deeper hole in two years when these federal funds are gone," Palin said in a statement. “Simply expanding state government under this federal stimulus package creates an unrealistic expectation that the state will continue these programs when the federal funds are no longer available." On Progressive Taxation Palin contends that Obama’s characterization of his tax plan revealed him to be a “socialist” who wants to “redistribute” American wealth. Palin argues that the Obama tax plan “discourages productivity,” will “punish hardwork,” and will “stifle the entrepreneurial spirit.” But on the other hand, she describes Alaska’s tax code in a very similar way. In an interview with Philip Gourevitch of the New Yorker, Palin explains the windfall profits tax that she imposed on the oil industry in Alaska as a mechanism for ensuring that Alaskans “share in the wealth” generated by oil companies: And Alaska—we’re set up, unlike other states in the union, where it’s collectively Alaskans own the resources. So we share in the wealth when the development of these resources occurs. … It’s to maximize benefits for Alaskans, not an individual company, not some multinational somewhere, but for Alaskans - Sarah PalinPhilip Gourevitch,A letter from Alaska . The New Yorker September 22, 2008. Alaska has no income or sales tax. The proceeds from the huge levies on the oil companies finance the government’s activities and enable it to issue a four-figure annual check to every man, woman, and child in the state. One of the reasons for Palin's popularity is that she added an additional $1200 to the annual check, bringing the per-person total to $3,269.Hendrik Hertzberg, Like, Socialism The New Yorker, November 3, 2008. Opposed to Universal Health Care, Fear Tactics The principal contribution to the health care provision debate was to propualrize the idea of death panels, an absurd misconstruance of End of Life Planning. In an August 7 posting on her Facebook page, Palin claimed that President Obama's health care plan would result in a "death panel" that is fundamentally "evil." On December 18, 2009,Politifact credited Palin with the "Death Panel" label and awarded it (and her) the 2009 Lie of the Year. "Of all the falsehoods and distortions in the political discourse this year, one stood out from the rest. Death Panels." Conservative crybaby Glenn Beck was awarded the runner-up prize for his whopper that Obama White House science adviser John Holdren, "proposed forcing abortions and putting sterilants in the drinking water to control population." Palin's position is compromised by contradition. She opposed end-of-life advance directives mentioned in page 425 of a health care bill. Yet, Palin declared April 16 2008 Healthcare Decisions Day in part so that "...more citizens will execute advance directives..." Although Palin denounced efforts to reform America's inefficient and class biased health care system, her grandson Tripp was a recipient of government provided health care. Now Less Skeptical about Climate Change In a December 2009 op-ed Palin expressed the view that global warming is due to "natural, cyclical environmental trends" but conceded the possibility that human activity might be a contributing factor. See herClimate Epiphany Scientific truth is something populist conservatives struggle with. Opposed to Abortion and Stem-Cell Research Urging the audience at the Vanderburgh County Right to Life Banquet on April 16, 2009 to work for a "culture of life," Palin stated that, "Life is ordained, life is precious," and that "I know for sure my son is perfect just as he is, made in the image of God." Source So what...God is male? In favor of Death Penalty "If legislature passed death penalty law, I would sign it." Palin for Governor Campaign Website “Issues” Nov 7, 2006 "If the Legislature were to pass a bill that established a death penalty on adults who murder children, I would sign it" Anchorage Daily News 2006 gubernatorial candidate profile Oct 22, 2006 Favors Civility, But Only After She Has Viciously Attacked After claiming that President Obama's health care plan would result in a "death panel" that is fundamentally "evil" on August 7, Palin called for civility in the debate on health care reform. Takes the Birther's "Issue" Seriously On December 3, 2009 Sarah Palin responded to a question from rightwing radio host Rusty Humphries about the birther issue with the following: "I think the public rightfully is still making it an issue. I don't have a problem with that. I don't know if I would have to bother to make it an issue, because I think that members of the electorate still want answers." Why take it seriously? Payback. In the samer interview she mentioned "that weird conspiracy theory freaky thing that people talk about that Trig isn't my real son, and a lot of people that went 'Well, you need to produce his birth certificate, you need to prove that he's your kid,' which we have done, but yeah, so maybe we can reverse that, and use the same inaudible thinking on the other one." So Palin is motivated by vengeance. Political Career Palin was born on February 11, 1964, Palin is the first female Governor of Alaska and the youngest person elected as governor of the state. Palin began her political career as a member of the Wasilla, Alaska, city council from 1992 to 1996 and the city's mayor from 1996 to 2002. After an unsuccessful campaign for Lieutenant Governor of Alaska in 2002, she chaired the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. Family Values Crisis A strident "family values" Christian Right conservative, Palin continues to be dogged by family problems that seem to flag a values crisis in the home. The problems have become non-election year fodder for comedians, fed by Palin's seeming determination to serve as their target. Responding to a joke by David Letterman, Plain remarked on Facebook that, "Concerning Letterman's comments about my young daughter (and I doubt he'd ever dare make such comments about anyone else's daughter): 'Laughter incited by sexually-perverted comments made by a 62-year-old male celebrity aimed at a 14-year-old girl is not only disgusting, but it reminds us some Hollywood/NY entertainers have a long way to go in understanding what the rest of America understands – that acceptance of inappropriate sexual comments about an underage girl, who could be anyone's daughter, contributes to the atrociously high rate of sexual exploitation of minors by older men who use and abuse others.'" Here Palin may have revealed that her conceived "rest of America" is actually a projection of her own anxieties, resentments and wishes. Strangeness * The Cayuga County New York Visitor Information Web Site presents a boxed quote from Palin. Why can't the local Republicans running that operation find a New Yorker to quote? See Also * God’s Army: A Short Guide to Sarah Palin’s Extreme Religious Worldview * Palin Promotes Her Book With Multiple Appearances on Fox News * Palin Telephone Support for Miss California Prejean Huffington * Keith Olbermann's Condemnation of Palin's Violent Imagery References Category:Alaska Republicans